1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet finishing apparatus for post-processing sheets of paper ejected from an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, or a composite device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been an image forming apparatus used in which to perform a post process of sorting and stapling sheets of paper after image forming, a sheet finishing apparatus is installed adjacent to the paper ejection unit of the image forming apparatus body. In such a sheet finishing apparatus, as a sheet post process, the stapling process may be desired to perform manually. When manually performing the stapling process, sheets of paper conveyed from the image forming apparatus body to the sheet finishing apparatus and sheets of paper manually inserted into the stapler unit must be prevented from colliding with each other, so that the process of the image forming apparatus body is stopped once and then the stapling process is performed.
For example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 7-100563, a finisher having an online mode in which the image forming apparatus body and stapler are operated together and an offline mode in which the stapler is operated independently for performing the stapling process when the offline mode is selected is described. However, in such an example, when performing manually the stapling process, the offline mode must be selected, so that the process by the image forming apparatus body is stopped, thus the efficiency is lowered, and a user feels inconvenience.